On February 23, a delegation headed by Ms Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, President of World Maritime University visited SMU and renewed the cooperation agreement between WMU and SMU. Mr Song Baoru, Secretary of CPC SMU Committee, Mr Lu Jing, President of SMU, Mr Shi Xin, Vice President of SMU and heads of International Office met with the guests.
Mr Song Baoru delivered a welcome speech, saying that SMU is committed to building a high-level maritime university with global influence, insisting on opening up education to the outside world and promoting the development of disciplines as well as talents by international cooperation. Under the development pattern of intelligent, green and efficient shipping industry, SMU hopes to further strengthen cooperation with WMU and work together to make contributions to promote the high-quality development of global shipping industry.
Mr Lu Jing said that since the two universities jointly run the MSc Program in International Transport and Logistics (ITL) in 2004, they have carried out fruitful cooperation in personnel training and academic exchanges. During the epidemic period, the two universities made full efforts to overcome difficulties together and successfully completed the mission. SMU will continue to integrate its own strengths and make full use of the industry resources of Shanghai International Shipping Center to continuously promote the development of the program.
Ms Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry expressed her sincere pleasure for the development of SMU and Shanghai shipping industry in recent years, and expressed her heartfelt thanks to SMU for sparing no efforts to promote this program in the past two decades. She looked forward to the next cooperation cycle，hoping that both sides would strengthen cooperation in education, teacher training, conferences holding and other aspects to seek common development.
Afterwards, Mr Lu Jing and Ms Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry renewed the cooperation agreement on behalf of both universities.
During the visit, Ms Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry met with the student representatives of the MSc Program in International Transport and Logistics (ITL) and gave a lecture entitledThe Future of Maritime Transport until 2040 to more than 260 students and teachers, encouraging young students to make good use of their knowledge, talents and professional skills, and contribute to the sustainable development of the global shipping industry.
